Toasters and Tariffs!

Toasters and Tariffs! www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Toasters and tariffs. Orn cass Orron cass Is. It's a
writer calls himself a conservative, but he's not really conservative
when it comes to his economic philosophy. And this piece
that he just put out, which is Trump's most misunderstood

(00:39):
policy proposal, economists aren't telling the whole truth about tariffs.
Interesting and it was actually funded by a left wing organization,
the Hewlett Foundation. And in this orn Cass says, you know,
this is just nonsensical. The media and economists have come

(01:03):
out against Donald Trump's Donald Trump's tariff policies, and well
they're working hand in hand, and the media and the
economists their their buddies with one another. Hold on a
second here, Hold on a second here, that mainstream media
has been awful when it comes to economics. There's actually

(01:27):
a great piece in National View by Dominic Dominic Pinot
who writes their Capital Market section, and he says that
same mainstream media that popularized greedflation modern monetary theory, runs
pr for organized labor and the green movement, says imports
reduced economic growth, spreads myits about inequality based on flawed data,

(01:49):
sensationalizes stock market freak outs that have little to do
with underlying economic conditions, cover for Democrats, plan to expand
the irs, villainize the successful company. He runs puff pieces
about government bureaucrats, parents, teachers, union's talking points about education,
and in general rarely comes across government intervention the economy
that it doesn't like. So yeah, yeah, I'm not buying

(02:13):
that either. Oran Anyway, one of the things that Orn
Cass is saying, and again it's it's big government. We
know better in Washington, we can control the economy. We're
better with your dollars than you are. And he brings
up a point which was fascinating, fascinating. His point is

(02:39):
actually it's about a toaster of it. His point is
that if a toaster oven, if we're going to pay
it's a toaster ovenant's thirty dollars. Here in the United States,
we're going to pay thirty two dollars, thirty five dollars.
Is that a big deal? Is that a big deal

(02:59):
if we have to pay a little bit more due
to tariffs, and you know, because it's we're going to
start making toasters here in the United States because of
those tariffs. The problem with Orang Cass is he, like
most most people who come up with these crazy ideas,
is they don't do their work. They don't show you

(03:22):
your work. And again I harken back to math class,
middle school math class. Right, the teacher wants you to
show your work. How did you get to that answer
in algebra? And it's important, it's important. So he throws
out this idea that if Donald Trump puts tariffs, let's

(03:45):
say on you know, sixty percent tariffs on China, where
toasters were getting cheap toasters from China, and all of
a sudden, toasters are now being made here in the
United States because of those tariffs, you know, and the
toasters here in the United States are, you know, thirty
five dollars? How did you come up with thirty five dollars?

(04:09):
How did you go? Show me your work? Show me work.
It's interesting because you can go see for yourself. There
are other industrialized nations that make toasters. Italy, for example,
makes appliances. Do you ever see how much an Italian

(04:31):
toaster costs? Huh? You see the type of high end
appliances they make in Italy? You ever see Gulo appliance?
All right, just just go take a look. Go to
best Buy, go to best Buy's website and take a
look at toasters. Yes, you can get a general electric
toaster which is probably made in China, more likely not

(04:58):
made here in the United State. It's thirty bucks. But
you can also get yourself a toaster from a major
industrialized nation, whether it be the UK make some, Switzerland
makes some, and they make some in Italy, and you're
paying hundreds of dollars. So the math, the math doesn't

(05:21):
work out on or in casts. As tariff nonsense. You
just can't tinker with it. Just because you say and
it sounds good doesn't mean it's necessarily going to work
out that way. Forget. I mean we're talking right now,

(05:41):
and I just did a podcast on ports. The fact
that we have some of the most expensive ports in
the entire world here in the United States and the
least efficient. Now, first and foremost, do you really think
that you really think that people are going to want
to spend you think it's going to be it's going

(06:02):
to be better for America if people do not have
the option to get an inexpensive toaster. You don't think
that that should be available. Yeah, you can go to
Best Spy. You can get yourself a three hundred dollars toaster.
But you can also get yourself the fifty dollars toaster,
the thirty dollars toaster. These people that think that they

(06:23):
can control and boost manufacturing here in the United States
with the wave of a tariff. Sorry, man, can't do it.
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